Black Copper Marans discussion thread

[flgardengirl]

Blue copper x blue copper should yield blue, black and splash. About 50% blue copper, 25% blk copper, and 25 % splash.

I was thinking, your friend should try putting in a game camera or a video camera and then he could catch the culprit in the act whichever man or beast lol. We put some in last year, not because of someone taking chickens but because someone broke into one of our outbuildings not long after we moved in and stole a bunch of stuff. The game cameras can be bought for under 100 or so at walmart I don't know how much of a detail they would give on a person though but you could tell what type of predator you were dealing with. I need to get some more camera for the part of our property where we have our guineas, last night something dug 4 holes around thier run. Luckily the birds were locked inside the coop.

 

[VillageChicken]

Has anyone ever grown out one of those dark brown BC chicks and gotten a hen? I just read something that might explain why it persists in so many birds, despite being so identifiable at hatch.

 

[geebs]

Okay... Are you going to share it will us or make us beg??? LOL

 

[VillageChicken]

Okay... in theory... it's the Db darkbrown gene that works like Columbian (eumelanin restricting) but also gives E and ER chicks a dark brown cast to the down. And it acts interestingly on ER birchen. It is the gene that makes blacktailed buff out of wheaten. It's in most Buff Orpingtons as well.

I read that on ER it's dominant in males and recessive in females - which means that it expresses in males with just one dose (your brown chicks) but females "carry" one dose and don't express. They will then pass that one copy to half their offspring, and the 1/2 that are males will express. So if you have a 1:6 flock and only one hen is carrying, you will throw one Db chick out of every 24. And unless you single mate and keep track of your eggs, you won't know who's the carrier.

If the above holds true, than the Db chicks should all be males, with the exception of someone using a Db restricted rooster over a Db carrying hen - probably not going to happen with any breeder paying any attention to what they're doing.

So I was curious if anyone has grown any of them out and found any females. The gene continues to persist in Wade lines all over, so there's got to be quite a few folks that have gotten them. They probably end up mossy or with too much copper... Don knows how they end up looking, I think he said he's growing a couple out this time around to show us what they end up looking like.

If it's true that roosters express with one dose and hens don't, then it's easier to know what to do to breed it out of your flock.

 

[snowbird]

Quote:
VC, It has been my experience that the darker brown chicks will be males and the lighter amount of brown will be mossy females. Will have more on this in about a month. If you remember I changed the male that I posted a picture of here over my females because I thought he would add more copper to the chicks. Well at this point its looks like it will turn into a nightmare as the 10 day chicks are getting brown over the body, the wings are already brown and waiting for more. I didn't see this in the test chicks from the first two hens.

I have also shot the theory about breeding the Dark males to mostly black females. From necessity I put the only real good males I had with all 28 of my BC females and according to the theory promoted by most I should of got mostly junk chicks. Well this just has not happened as I have some very nice young fowl feathering with good copper showing up. I should of left well enough alone and stayed with this mating through the hatching season.

I believe we must make these mating ourselves and not pay a lot of attention to what is posted on the internet.

 

[Lifesong Farm]

So far out of my 11 eggs (1 had very hard to see crack) I have 3 chicks, 2 pips, 1 internal pip and 3 rocking. Not sure about the last 2. They are developed just not seeing/hearing signs of life. I am a little worried about the one that has pipped. It had so much blood I had to break lockdown and use cotton swabs to clear its beak and nose so it could breath.

 

[flgardengirl]

I have had a couple hatch out that had a brown spot or two on them and they were both male. One is from bhb line and is that Agent Orange roo (really orangy) the other one, just has a lot of flames throughout his chest: more than he should. I got that one from a different breeder.
Here's a pic of Agent Orange when he was younger. Now he is more solid buff red with black tail and blackish on wings. I don't know why I still have him. I'm not breeding him.
He is in with the guineas and keeps their butts in line lol.

 

[Debbi]

Yeah Don!!! Glad to hear that, as that's what I did too. Me, more out of lack of anything with color, and the fact that my big boys are so beefy they should improve the typiness and weight of the flock. The first hatch of 5 have nice color coming in at 5 weeks! This is the clutch that still may have had some Fuglee influence in there, so we'll see. The lone chick that hatched and is now two weeks old is looking like a roo, and a Clyde baby at that. Can't wait to see how he feathers out!

 

[geebs]

FLGARDEN: That looks like a black tailed buff

Did Fuglee breed forward his strange type or was that an injury???

 

[Debbi]

Quote:
Poor old Fugs was a shrink wrapped chick for many hours before I helped him out. My first hatch, and had listened to all those "experts" that told me not to open the bator. Had I intervened sooner, he may not have ended up crippled.